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Consistency of Balance Preferences in Three Musical Genres

Balancing the level of different sound sources is the most basic task performed in the process of mixing. While this task forms a basic building block of music mixing, very little research has been conducted to objectively study mixing habits and balance preferences. In this study data is collected from 15 highly-trained subjects performing simple mixing tasks on multiple musical excerpts spanning three musical genres. Balance preference is examined over musical genre, and the results exhibit more narrow variances in balance for certain genres over others.